Pages

Friday, March 25, 2011

My friend's husband has terminal cancer. He has been fighting metastatic bladder cancer for several years. Around Thanksgiving last year, looking for something I could do to help, I asked if collecting gift cards for them would be beneficial. Since he was not able to work and she had taken a leave of absence from her job as a teacher, she agreed quickly that it would make a huge difference.

I sent an email to maybe 50 people, posted something on my Facebook, Tweeted about it. The rest is nothing short of amazing. Within days, neighbors who have never met my friends, dropped off gift cards. Within the week, I got more gift cards in the mail. Gift cards were brought instead of gifts to a Christmas party. And so on and so on.

I lost count of the amount that was collected. I know that groceries, school supplies and Christmas gifts for their kids were bought without worry. In fact, the last of the cards was just recently used.

So I am starting again. This time collecting gift cards in any amount from $5 - $100 to distribute to people I know about with cancer to brighten up an otherwise dark time in their lives.

LIKE The Cancer Card Xchange on Facebook

Where It All Began

The idea for this really began in 2007 while on a trip with my husband to my very first appointment at MD Anderson in Houston, Texas, hundreds of miles from my home in Collierville, Tennessee.

I was referred to MD Anderson by my ENT in Memphis after a biopsy revealed squamous cell carcinoma on my tongue. I was pregnant with my 4th son at the time. I had successful surgery at MD Anderson and return there for checkups regularly.

On that first trip to Houston, friends of ours arranged for a gift card to be waiting for us at a popular Mexican restaurant, Pappasitos, in Houston. For good luck, we ate there on every subsequent visit. To this day, that simple gesture of kindness and generosity stands out in my mind more than any of the 2 years' worth of CT scans and doctor's appointments.

Today, I am a healthy wife and mother to 4 sons. My hope is simply that through this endeavor, other cancer patients will remember a bright spot along their journey.